Theater Aeromedical Evacuation

File: 970207_aadcu_010.txt
Page: 010
Total Pages: 36

                                    MEDICAL LESSONS LEARNED                 
                                          DESERT SHIELD/STORM

       CATEGORY: Blood
      
       ISSUE/ITEM:
      
       SUBJECT:  Assessment of Donor Population
      
       BACKGROUND: Military Blood Donor Centers are assigned quotas for collection
       based, in part, on calculated base donor pools. Care should be taken to ensure
       donor population is accurately quantified.
      
      DISCUSSION: A high percentage of ATC donors are our students. In Desert Storm,
      we found that we had not previously considered the fact that pipeline students
      would have recently arrived from BMTS at Lackland where they would have been
      previously drawn to satisfy Lackland quotas. The impact would have been much
      greater in a general war scenario, when BMTS/student production would be greatly
      accelerated.
      
       ACTION RECOMMENDED:
      
      (1) Determine appropriate "discount factors" in calculating
      available student donors at the receiving TTCs.
      
       (2) Determine minimum safe time interval in which these students
      could be redrawn at the TTCs.
      
       SUGGESTED OPRs/OCRs: HQ ATC/SG/TT
                                                    HQ USAF/SGHR
      
                   SUBMITTER: Terry W. Clarke/Capt/HQ ATC/SGAX
                                           [(b)(2)]